Friendly Fire (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 3)

by Marliss Melton

  Canché took the same information from Tristan.

  "What do you do in the Navy?" Self-assurance bolstered his soft-spoken voice, lending him the authority that his stature denied him.

  "We're SEALs," Tristan admitted.

  Canché's pen froze. He looked up, his gaze inscrutable.

  "You should know that SOCOM is aware of the situation and plans to take action," Tristan warned.

  Juliet took a wild guess at what the acronym stood for—Southern Command, she decided.

  "The bus was located last night," Canché volunteered suddenly. "It was abandoned on a remote road in the Parque Nacional de Quintana Roo, twenty kilometers inland."

  Juliet's heart had lifted only to plummet in the silence that followed. Dread swamped her suddenly. "Where is everyone?"

  Canché broke eye contact. "I'm very sorry to tell you this. It appears that the bus was boarded by bandits."

  She stared at him dumbfounded. His words confirmed what Tristan's master chief had claimed to overhear via Bullfrog's sat phone, but bandits?

  "We found many bullet casings but not much else. The bus had been set on fire."

  He could not have said anything more horrific. "What?" Panic sheared the single syllable.

  Tristan reached for her hand.

  "Of the twenty-seven souls who ought to have been on board," Canché continued in his soft, steely voice, "approximately half that number were still there, burned beyond recognition. It will take a while to identify them."

  "Oh, my God!" Juliet clapped a hand over her mouth. Her stomach heaved.

  "That's only half the people, hon," Tristan interjected. "The others are probably still alive." He squeezed her hand hard, urging her to keep herself together.

  "Then where are they?" she demanded. This couldn't be happening. Emma and Sammy were the only two people in the world that she had left!

  "We found footprints suggesting the rest were made to walk some distance. Then they appear to have boarded another vehicle."

  "They've been abducted?" she guessed.

  Canché nodded. "It appears so."

  Stomach acid rose up her esophagus. "Why? For ransom?"

  "If money is the motive, we will know soon enough," he answered.

  "But why kidnap only half of the passengers if they're after money?" Tristan asked. "The more hostages, the more money."

  "I don't know yet," the detective admitted. Pulling an iPad from his desk drawer, he tapped the screen then swiped a finger over it several times, looking for something. "There were a few personal items that escaped destruction. Can you identify any of these?" He handed the iPad across his desk.

  Scarcely daring to breathe, Juliet stared at the photo of a soot-covered necklace she had never seen before. At her headshake, Tristan reached over to swipe the screen to the next picture—the remains of a flip flop. Dread pegged her to the chair. It could have been Sammy's; she'd never paid attention to her footwear.

  "I don't know."

  Tristan panned through several more photos—a singed iPod, the frames of someone's glasses, and then—

  "That's Bullfrog's sat phone," Tristan stated, his tone suddenly more grim than it had been minutes before. "Or what's left of it," he amended.

  "Bullfrog?" Canché queried.

  "Jeremiah. We call him Bullfrog because he's fast in the water."

  The detective gestured for them to continue.

  At the very next picture, Juliet gave a cry of recognition. "That's Sammy's," she wheezed. The pool bag was charred, the handles completely gone. But just enough of the orange flowered canvas remained to make it recognizable.

  Suddenly, she had trouble finding air. Panic streaked through her nerves, seeking an outlet. Pushing the iPad away, she lurched out of her chair and headed for the door. Tristan said something to Canché that she couldn't hear.

  Down the hall she fled, pushing through the glass door into the brilliant sunshine. Her gaze went straight to the ribbon of aqua blue behind the hotel across the street. If she could just get herself into the wind, she would be able to breathe again.

  The blare of a car horn brought her up short. Jumping back onto the curb, she avoided being struck by a yellow taxi as it barreled past, the driver yelling obscenities.

  "Juliet!" Tristan caught her by the arm and pulled her into his embrace. He held her firmly, rubbing a hand up and down her spine.

  With her cheek pressed to his pectoral and his arms around her, her racing pulse subsided. She sucked a shuddering breath into her lungs. "They're dead," she said flatly, her voice barely above a whisper. The sun continued to wheel through the sky, untouched by the tragedy that flattened her.

  "No." He refuted her words with so much certainty that she dared to believe him. "No way," he said. "Bullfrog's too smart to let that happen to them. They got off that bus, hon. I'm sure of it."

  "But that was Sammy's pool bag."

  "So what? She left it behind. Don't kids do that all the time?"

  She thought about it. "I guess." Especially Sammy, who forgot to take her homework to school at least one day a week.

  "I'm telling you, they're alive," he repeated. "Master Chief told me something just this morning that I haven't told you yet."

  "What?" she cried, fearing the worst.

  "I thought it was bad news at the time, but..." he paused and brought his right arm from behind her back. "See this watch?" He showed her the complex-looking gadget strapped to his wrist. "Bullfrog has one just like it, and it comes with built-in GPS so Uncle Sam won't lose us. That watch went to Mérida last night. The bandits must have driven them there in the second vehicle."

  "Mérida. Why would they have taken them to Mérida?"

  "I don't know. It's a pretty big city. Maybe it's easier to hide hostages there."

  "We have to find them."

  "Of course." He cradled her face in his hands and regarded her steadily. "We will. Just keep calm, partner. This ain't the time to freak out."

  "No," she agreed. "You're right. It's just..." Panic threatened to rise in her again. She tamped it down by sheer force of will and kept her sentence incomplete. Tristan didn't need to know how vulnerable she felt with her sister and niece in jeopardy. Weakness wasn't the impression she wanted to give him—not after last night. She was a strong and independent woman who didn't need a man to rescue her. Who didn't need a man. Period.

  "So where do we start?" he asked her. "You're the detective. This is your strong suit, isn't it?"

  She considered the glittering police station for a moment. "We need to go back inside and find out everything Canché knows—every damn gruesome detail, no matter how small. And what happened to the bus driver and the tour guide? Were they kidnapped, too, or were they possibly in on it?"

  "Let's go find out," Tristan said. With one arm around her shoulder, he escorted her back into the building.

  Chapter 12

  A chill swamped every limb in Emma's body as she strained her ears for the sound of Sammy's voice floating up from the lower level.

  Half an hour earlier, the lights had come on. The steel door had swung open. For breakfast, each hostage received a banana, a tortilla, and a bottle of water from the stash in the corner. Joe had taken a peek at the contents and told them there was enough food to last them all about two weeks, after which time their captor had said he would sell them or kill them—unless, of course, their ransom was paid. To that end, he was calling them all downstairs to get their information.

  Joe from Newark had been summoned first. Ten minutes later, he'd returned to report that the leader wanted the email addresses of whomever would pay to see his hostages alive again. He also wanted bank account numbers and personal identification numbers to go with the bank and credit cards he'd stolen. Joe had advised everyone to give out false information.

  "And then what?" asked the mother of the teenage boy. "They might kill us."

  "If you give them money right away, they'll kill you anyway. Better to stall them and hope we
get rescued first." He'd shot a meaningful glance at Jeremiah.

  Joe's girlfriend, mascara and tears streaking down her face, had been summoned next, followed by the newlyweds, then the two sisters who had accompanied teenage Noah and his mother. They had taken the cruise together, Emma had learned, to move past the death of the boy's father.

  Every hostage had a story to tell of lives that had been interrupted by this awful act of violence.

  She had expected to be called next—not Sammy, who'd been ordered at gunpoint to face the leader alone. It made no sense why the guerillas would want to question an eleven-year-old.

  "What are they asking her?" Emma turned to Jeremiah.

  In lieu of a reply, he put an arm around her.

  Snatches of Sammy's frightened voice reached their ears. A wave of ugly laughter followed, and Emma started toward the heavily armed guard only to be restrained by Jeremiah's iron grip.

  "It's okay," he reassured her. "They're not hurting her."

  She turned into his embrace, pushing her face into his shirt. "I can't do this."

  "Count to fifty," he suggested. "She'll be back before you finish."

  The alternative was to tear the guard's eyes out and get herself killed in the process, and so she counted. At twenty-seven, Sammy came flying up the stairs, past the guard, and into her mother's arms.

  Emma hugged her close, vowing never to let her from her sight again.

  "What did they ask you?" she whispered.

  Sammy lifted her gaze, glanced at Jeremiah then back at her mother. "They wanted to know if you guys were married."

  "What?" Out of the corner of her eye, Emma saw Jeremiah look at her. "What did you say?" she asked her daughter.

  "I said yes."

  "Why, honey?"

  "I don't know. So they wouldn't hurt us."

  "Okay. That makes sense," she assured her daughter, who clearly viewed Jeremiah as their best hope for survival. But she wasn't sure that lying to their captors was a good idea. What if they had a way of checking on Sammy's answer? Beyond that, was it fair to Jeremiah to expect him to protect them? There was only so much a single man could do against a dozen.

  "Sauers!" The guerilla guarding the stairs repeated the name being called up to him.

  Bert, who was standing by the hammock where his wife had lapsed into a coma, straightened his spine, took one last look at Joan and marched resolutely toward the stairs.

  Jeremiah edged into his path. "Don't trust them to keep their promises," Emma heard him warn.

  Bert stopped and glared at him. "I told you Joan wouldn't survive this. She needs a doctor—now, not just a field medic," he added with tempered bitterness. "I'll do whatever it takes to get her one."

  "They'll kill you anyway," Joe from Newark piped up. "They'll take every cent you've got, and then they'll kill you."

  "Quiet," Jeremiah ordered, sending him a quelling look.

  The cop scowled and turned away.

  Ignoring Joe, Bert's blue eyes sought Jeremiah's understanding as he gestured toward his wife. "What choice do I have?"

  "Apúrate, viejo!" the guard shouted, urging Bert to move faster.

  "String them along," Jeremiah advised. "Right now, all you need is insulin."

  Bert shook his head and continued toward the stairs.

  Watching Jeremiah's face as the old man disappeared, Emma could tell Bert's desperation worried him.

  "Honey, go lie in our hammock," she said to Sammy.

  "But they might call you next." Under the halogen lights, Sammy's freckles seemed bleached.

  "They may call me and Jeremiah together since you told them we were married. I'll be fine," she added, smoothing her daughter's tangled hair.

  As Sammy climbed into their hammock, Emma stepped toward Jeremiah, who stood with his arms across his chest, a scowl of concentration on his face—perhaps trying to hear what Bert was telling the leader downstairs.

  "You think they'll just take his money and...?" she trailed off, unable to finish her sentence even in a whisper that no one else could overhear.

  He met her gaze but didn't answer. She realized that, unlike Joe, Jeremiah refused to articulate negative thoughts lest they contribute to a tragic ending. Yet, she could see why he would be concerned. Their captors wouldn't release anyone who could go straight to the authorities or to the American Embassy.

  "What should I tell them when they ask for my PIN?" she asked.

  Her bank information would give the leader access to both her checking and savings, even to her CD—to everything she had saved for her and Sammy.

  "Give them a false PIN for now," he advised. "We try to stall them until help comes."

  "Okay." His faith in his master chief's ability to find them reassured her that it would happen.

  The sound of footsteps drew their gazes to the door. Bert reappeared, followed by two guerillas. His refusal to look at Jeremiah suggested he'd struck a deal with their captors—but what sort of deal?

  Holding a collective breath, the hostages watched as the guerillas crossed to Joan's hammock. With Bert fussing on the fringes, they lifted the unconscious woman and toted her toward the stairs. Bert followed right behind them. Directing one final glance back at the remaining captives, he lifted a hand in farewell and disappeared.

  The guard at the top of the stairs followed after him, suggesting the interviews were over, at least for the moment.

  Processing what had happened, the remaining captives stared at one another in shock. They all knew they might never see Bert and Joan alive again. Just what had he promised the guerillas in exchange for their release? Had he given them information that might put their lives in danger?

  And would the leader really release them, or would he kill them the instant the money was wired?

  Going by Jeremiah's grim expression, the latter was more likely.

  * * *

  With all of the guerillas downstairs for the moment, Jeremiah crossed to one of the boarded windows at the front of the building. Curling his fingers over the top of the plywood, he gave it a determined yank. The panel gave a crack, and then a piece near the top broke off.

  Rolling on to the balls of his feet, he peered outside for his first look at their surroundings. Activity in the yard below caught his attention. There was Bert, stooping to slide into the back seat of a rust-colored Corolla. The two guerillas carrying his wife passed her in to him. One of them jumped behind the wheel while the other went to unchain the gate.

  The car then exited the yard. After the man at the gate chained it once more from the outside, he slipped into the front seat, and they drove away.

  Watching the car disappear, kicking up a small dust cloud, Jeremiah attempted to remote view in the hopes of seeing where it was headed—probably straight to a bank. But with his emotions in turmoil, he couldn't retain an image for more than a few seconds. Dismay banded his chest as he considered Bert and Joan's fate. Would anyone ever hear from them again?

  Shifting his attention to their whereabouts, he took a good look around. Viewed through the small jagged window he'd created, Mérida reminded him of Palenque, where Echo Platoon had stormed El Cuchillo's compound the previous year. This was obviously a larger city, with palm trees that betrayed its proximity to the coast. Run-down buildings, trash in the street, and a stray dog sniffing at the gate all testified to a socio-economic situation that gave rise to thugs like El Cuchillo and Craterface in the first place.

  If the worn Fanta sign abandoned in the dirty yard below meant anything, then the building they were in may have been a bottling plant. The wall it had been propped against was made of cinderblock, like the building, only it was topped with barbed wire to keep intruders out. Only one taller building stood within the vicinity, but it was too far down the road to offer decent vantages for snipers.

  "Someone's coming," Emma whispered from a few feet away.

  He quickly jammed the bit of plywood back into place and spun around. He'd seen enough to realize that a stage
d rescue would pose tremendous challenges.

  "Médico," called the guerilla, resuming his stance at the door and waving him over. "Tú y tu señora abajo ahora."

  Jeremiah nodded. As expected, they were taking him and Emma together. He was grateful that Sammy had lied when interrogated.

  He watched Emma give her daughter a swift hug. Then he crossed the room, took her hand in his, and together they headed downstairs to face their captors.

  * * *

  "Quién es?" The male voice coming from inside the locked door wobbled with fear.

  Tristan glanced at the police detective who stood to one side of the door as a precaution against bullets. Standing on the other side of the door on the flower-covered patio, he put Juliet behind him, blocking her from moving with his arm.

  "Inspector Canché, Policía," the detective called with authority.

  A lock slid back and the door cracked open. Dark eyes pinned the detective mistrustfully then darted toward Tristan and Juliet.

  The home belonged to Nacho Nuñez, employee of Yucatan Tours, who ought to have been on the missing tour bus. According to Canché, Nuñez had called his employer at seven o'clock that morning to tender his resignation. His actions, Canché had explained, suggested he knew something of this incident. This had to be Nuñez speaking to them through the four-inch opening.

  "What do you want?" he asked.

  Canché sent him a steady stare. "I think you know," he said.

  Nuñez hung his head, stepped back, and pulled the door open. "Please, come in," he mumbled, his eyes darting toward the street.

  They all stood in a miniscule living room. Tristan could hear a woman humming as pans rattled in the adjacent kitchen. A baby babbled happily. Why would Nuñez quit his job when he had a young family to support? Unless he'd known what was going to happen, as Tristan suspected.

  Young and wiry, Nuñez gestured to the only furniture in the room, a sofa still covered in plastic. "Have a seat. Can I get you anything? Water? Juice?"

  "No, thank you." Canché perched on the edge of the sofa, prompting Juliet to do the same. Tristan remained standing, his eyes taking in their surroundings and the nervous man who attempted to offer them hospitality.